The Nature-Disorder Paradox: A Perceptual Study on How Nature Is Disorderly Yet Aesthetically Preferred

The Nature-Disorder Paradox: A Perceptual Study on How Nature Is Disorderly Yet Aesthetically Preferred. By Hiroki Kotabe, Omid Kardan & Marc Berman
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28557512

Abstract: Natural environments have powerful aesthetic appeal linked to their capacity for psychological restoration. In contrast, disorderly environments are aesthetically aversive, and have various detrimental psychological effects. But in our research, we have repeatedly found that natural environments are perceptually disorderly. What could explain this paradox? We present 3 competing hypotheses: the aesthetic preference for naturalness is more powerful than the aesthetic aversion to disorder (the nature-trumps-disorder hypothesis); disorder is trivial to aesthetic preference in natural contexts (the harmless-disorder hypothesis); and disorder is aesthetically preferred in natural contexts (the beneficial-disorder hypothesis). Utilizing novel methods of perceptual study and diverse stimuli, we rule in the nature-trumps-disorder hypothesis and rule out the harmless-disorder and beneficial-disorder hypotheses. In examining perceptual mechanisms, we find evidence that high-level scene semantics are both necessary and sufficient for the nature-trumps-disorder effect. Necessity is evidenced by the effect disappearing in experiments utilizing only low-level visual stimuli (i.e., where scene semantics have been removed) and experiments utilizing a rapid-scene-presentation procedure that obscures scene semantics. Sufficiency is evidenced by the effect reappearing in experiments utilizing noun stimuli which remove low-level visual features. Furthermore, we present evidence that the interaction of scene semantics with low-level visual features amplifies the nature-trumps-disorder effect — the effect is weaker both when statistically adjusting for quantified low-level visual features and when using noun stimuli which remove low-level visual features. These results have implications for psychological theories bearing on the joint influence of low- and high-level perceptual inputs on affect and cognition, as well as for aesthetic design.

Entertainment and the Opportunity Cost of Civic Participation: Monday Night Football Game Quality Suppresses Turnout in US Elections

Entertainment and the Opportunity Cost of Civic Participation: Monday Night Football Game Quality Suppresses Turnout in US Elections. By Matthew Potoski & R. Urbatsch
Journal of Politics, April 2017, Pages 424-438, http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/688174

Abstract: Raising the opportunity cost of people’s time may reduce their commitment to social obligations such as voting. Notably, entertaining sporting events can be strong civic distractions, as commentators throughout history have lamented. To consider sporting events’ influence on political behavior, this paper examines the effect of Monday Night Football games the day before US general elections from 1970 to 2014. More attractive games, such as those that feature more prominent and competitive match-ups or that feature local or high-scoring teams, may entice people to consume more entertainment and thus have less time to devote to civic affairs. When preelection football game quality increases from its 25th to 75th percentile, voter turnout falls by between 2 and 8 percentage points. These effects are somewhat weaker among those more interested in politics and do not appear in placebo tests on other political behaviors occurring before the preelection game.

Young children discover how to deceive in 10 days: a microgenetic study

Ding XP, Heyman GD, Fu G, Zhu B, Lee K. Young children discover how to deceive in 10 days: a microgenetic study. Dev Sci. 2017;00:. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12566

Abstract: We investigated how the ability to deceive emerges in early childhood among a sample of young preschoolers (Mean age = 34.7 months). We did this via a 10-session microgenetic method that took place over a 10-day period. In each session, children played a zero-sum game against an adult to win treats. In the game, children hid the treats and had opportunities (10 trials) to win them by providing deceptive information about their whereabouts to the adult. Although children initially showed little or no ability to deceive, most spontaneously discovered deception and systematically used it to win the game by the tenth day. Both theory of mind and executive function skills were predictive of relatively faster patterns of discovery. These results are the first to provide evidence for the importance of cognitive skills and social experience in the discovery of deception over time in early childhood.

Panhandling in Downtown Manhattan: A Preliminary Analysis

Panhandling in Downtown Manhattan: A Preliminary Analysis. By Gwendolyn Dordick & Brendan O’Flaherty
https://www.gc.cuny.edu/CUNY_GC/media/CUNY-Graduate-Center/PDF/Programs/Economics/Course%20Schedules/Seminar%20Sp.2013/panhandlingpaper100813.pdf

Abstract: Panhandling is a very visible industry, yet mysterious to outsiders. How does it work? How do
panhandlers allocate locations? Is there a market? Do they fight? Is there a mafia? How do
panhandlers get donors to give, when many potential donors think most panhandlers are frauds?
What are good policies toward panhandling? Should it be banned? Should generosity diversion
programs be set up to divert donations to formal charities? Should it be encouraged? Our tentative
answers are that there are more good locations than willing panhandlers, and so location is not
contentious or a big source of efficiency losses. On information, a pooling equilibrium is far from
first-best, and policy might concentrate on improving credibility.

... while panhandlers in general have low credibility, their livelihoods depend on having high
credibility...

Competing cues: Older adults rely on knowledge in the face of fluency

Competing cues: Older adults rely on knowledge in the face of fluency. By Brashier, Nadia M.; Umanath, Sharda; Cabeza, Roberto; Marsh, Elizabeth J. Psychology and Aging, Vol 32(4), Jun 2017, 331-337. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pag0000156

Abstract: Consumers regularly encounter repeated false claims in political and marketing campaigns, but very little empirical work addresses their impact among older adults. Repeated statements feel easier to process, and thus more truthful, than new ones (i.e., illusory truth). When judging truth, older adults’ accumulated general knowledge may offset this perception of fluency. In two experiments, participants read statements that contradicted information stored in memory; a post-experimental knowledge check confirmed what individual participants knew. Unlike young adults, older adults exhibited illusory truth only when they lacked knowledge about claims. This interaction between knowledge and fluency extends dual-process theories of aging.

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My additional keywords: misinformation, bias

Ineffective leadership and employees’ negative outcomes: The mediating effect of anxiety and depression

Ineffective leadership and employees’ negative outcomes: The mediating effect of anxiety and depression. By Pyc, Lindsay S.; Meltzer, Daniel P.; Liu, Cong
International Journal of Stress Management, Vol 24(2), May 2017, 196-215. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/str0000030

Abstract: Past research has shown that abusive supervision is linked to negative outcomes for employees, chiefly employees’ counterproductive work behaviors directed at organizations. This study examined the relationships between two types of ineffective supervision (abusive supervision and authoritarian leadership style) and employees’ distal negative outcomes (e.g., exhaustion, physical symptoms, job dissatisfaction, intention to quit, and poor job performance) in a sample of 232 nurses and 24 supervisors. In addition, this study examined how emotional reactions (anxiety and depression) mediated the negative relationships between ineffective leadership and employees’ distal outcomes. The results suggested that both types of ineffective leadership were related to similar negative employee outcomes, and anxiety and depression mediated these relationships. The conclusions from this study contribute to the ineffective leadership literature through connecting previous findings on abusive supervision with those of authoritarian leadership style. Organizations can utilize these results to raise awareness among supervisors about the implications their behaviors in the workplace have on employees’ welfare and on organizational effectiveness.

Talking is harder than listening: The time course of dual-task costs during naturalistic conversation

Talking is harder than listening: The time course of dual-task costs during naturalistic conversation. By Lee, April M. C.; Cerisano, Stefania; Humphreys, Karin R.; Watter, Scott
Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, Vol 71(2), Jun 2017, 111-119. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/cep0000114

Abstract: Many studies have shown that the cognitive demands of language use are a substantial cause of central dual-task costs, including costs on concurrent driving performance. More recently, several studies have considered whether language production or comprehension is inherently more difficult with respect to costs on concurrent performance, with mixed results. This assessment is particularly difficult given the open question of how one should best equate and compare production and comprehension demands and performance. The present study used 2 very different approaches to address this question. Experiment 1 assessed manual tracking performance concurrently with a conventional laboratory task, comparing dual-task costs with comprehension and verification versus production of category items. Experiment 2 adopted an extreme ecological and functional approach to this question by assessing dual-task manual tracking costs concurrent with continuous, naturalistic, 2-way conversation, allowing event-related analysis of continuous tracking relative to onsets and offsets of natural production and comprehension events. Over both experiments, tracking performance was worse with concurrent production versus comprehension demands. We suggest that by at least 1 important functional metric—performance in natural, everyday conversation—talking is indeed harder than listening.

Evaluation of a proposal for reliable low-cost grid power with 100% wind, water, and solar

Evaluation of a proposal for reliable low-cost grid power with 100% wind, water, and solar. By Christopher T. M Clack, Staffan A. Qvist, Jay Apt,, Morgan Bazilian, Adam R. Brandt, Ken Caldeira, Steven J. Davis, Victor Diakov, Mark A. Handschy, Paul D. H. Hines, Paulina Jaramillo, Daniel M. Kammen, Jane C. S. Long, M. Granger Morgan, Adam Reed, Varun Sivaram, James Sweeney, George R. Tynan, David G. Victor, John P. Weyant, and Jay F. Whitacre. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/06/16/1610381114.full

Significance: Previous analyses have found that the most feasible route to a low-carbon energy future is one that adopts a diverse portfolio of technologies. In contrast, Jacobson et al. (2015) consider whether the future primary energy sources for the United States could be narrowed to almost exclusively wind, solar, and hydroelectric power and suggest that this can be done at “low-cost” in a way that supplies all power with a probability of loss of load “that exceeds electric-utility-industry standards for reliability”. We find that their analysis involves errors, inappropriate methods, and implausible assumptions. Their study does not provide credible evidence for rejecting the conclusions of previous analyses that point to the benefits of considering a broad portfolio of energy system options. A policy prescription that overpromises on the benefits of relying on a narrower portfolio of technologies options could be counterproductive, seriously impeding the move to a cost effective decarbonized energy system.

Abstract: A number of analyses, meta-analyses, and assessments, including those performed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and the International Energy Agency, have concluded that deployment of a diverse portfolio of clean energy technologies makes a transition to a low-carbon-emission energy system both more feasible and less costly than other pathways. In contrast, Jacobson et al. [Jacobson MZ, Delucchi MA, Cameron MA, Frew BA (2015) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 112(49):15060–15065] argue that it is feasible to provide “low-cost solutions to the grid reliability problem with 100% penetration of WWS [wind, water and solar power] across all energy sectors in the continental United States between 2050 and 2055”, with only electricity and hydrogen as energy carriers. In this paper, we evaluate that study and find significant shortcomings in the analysis. In particular, we point out that this work used invalid modeling tools, contained modeling errors, and made implausible and inadequately supported assumptions. Policy makers should treat with caution any visions of a rapid, reliable, and low-cost transition to entire energy systems that relies almost exclusively on wind, solar, and hydroelectric power.

Words we do not say—Context effects on the phonological activation of lexical alternatives in speech production

Words we do not say—Context effects on the phonological activation of lexical alternatives in speech production. By  Jescheniak, Jörg D.; Kurtz, Franziska; Schriefers, Herbert; Günther, Josefine; Klaus, Jana; Mädebach, Andreas
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, Vol 43(6), Jun 2017, 1194-1206. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000352

Abstract: There is compelling evidence that context strongly influences our choice of words (e.g., whether we refer to a particular animal with the basic-level name “bird” or the subordinate-level name “duck”). However, little is known about whether the context already affects the degree to which the alternative words are activated. In this study, we explored the effect of a preceding linguistic context on the phonological activation of alternative picture names. In Experiments 1 to 3, the context was established by a request produced by an imaginary interlocutor. These requests either constrained the naming response to the subordinate level on pragmatic grounds (e.g., “name the bird!”) or not (e.g., “name the object!”). In Experiment 4, the context was established by the speaker’s own previous naming response. Participants named the pictures with their subordinate-level names and the phonological activation of the basic-level names was assessed with distractor words phonologically related versus unrelated to that name (e.g., “birch” vs. “lamp”). In all experiments, we consistently found that distractor words phonologically related to the basic-level name interfered with the naming response more strongly than unrelated distractor words. Moreover, this effect was of comparable size for nonconstraining and constraining contexts indicating that the alternative name was phonologically activated and competed for selection, even when it was not an appropriate lexical option. Our results suggest that the speech production system is limited in its ability of flexibly adjusting and fine-tuning the lexical activation patterns of words (among which to choose from) as a function of pragmatic constraints.

Thought-Control Difficulty Motivates Structure Seeking

Thought-Control Difficulty Motivates Structure Seeking. By Anyi Ma et al.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/articles/28627909/

Abstract: Struggling to control one’s mind can change how the world appears. In prior studies testing the compensatory control theory, reduced control over the external environment motivated the search for perceptual patterns and other forms of structured knowledge, even in remote domains. Going further, the current studies test whether difficulty controlling thoughts similarly predicts structure seeking. As hypothesized, thought-control difficulty positively predicted perceptions of causal connections between remote events (Study 1a) and nonexistent objects in visual noise (Study 1b). This effect was mediated by aversive arousal (Study 2) and caused specifically by thought-control difficulty as distinct from general difficulty (Study 3). Study 4 replicated the effect with a sample of meditators learning to control their thoughts, showing that thought-control difficulty was a powerful predictor of structure seeking. These findings reveal a novel form of motivated perception.

Eight-minute self-regulation intervention raises educational attainment at scale in individualist but not collectivist cultures

Eight-minute self-regulation intervention raises educational attainment at scale in individualist but not collectivist cultures. By René Kizilcec & Geoffrey Cohen
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 25 April 2017, Pages 4348–4353, http://www.pnas.org/content/114/17/4348.short

Significance: High attrition from educational programs is a major obstacle to social mobility and a persistent source of economic inefficiency. Over two-thirds of students entering a 2-y institution fail to earn a credential in the United States. In online courses, attrition rates are even higher. In two large field experiments, we tested the conditions under which a writing activity that facilitates goal commitment and goal-directed behavior reduces attrition in online courses. The activity raised completion rates by up to 78% for members of individualist cultures and primarily for those who contended with predictable and surmountable obstacles in the form of everyday obligations, but it was ineffective in collectivist cultures and for people contending with other types of obstacles.

Abstract: Academic credentials open up a wealth of opportunities. However, many people drop out of educational programs, such as community college and online courses. Prior research found that a brief self-regulation strategy can improve self-discipline and academic outcomes. Could this strategy support learners at large scale? Mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII) involves writing about positive outcomes associated with a goal, the obstacles to achieving it, and concrete if–then plans to overcome them. The strategy was developed in Western countries (United States, Germany) and appeals to individualist tendencies, which may reduce its efficacy in collectivist cultures such as India or China. We tested this hypothesis in two randomized controlled experiments in online courses (n = 17,963). Learners in individualist cultures were 32% (first experiment) and 15% (second experiment) more likely to complete the course following the MCII intervention than a control activity. In contrast, learners in collectivist cultures were unaffected by MCII. Natural language processing of written responses revealed that MCII was effective when a learner’s primary obstacle was predictable and surmountable, such as everyday work or family obligations but not a practical constraint (e.g., Internet access) or a lack of time. By revealing heterogeneity in MCII’s effectiveness, this research advances theory on self-regulation and illuminates how even highly efficacious interventions may be culturally bounded in their effects

Cross-country relationships between life expectancy, intertemporal choice and age at first birth

Cross-country relationships between life expectancy, intertemporal choice and age at first birth. By Adam Bulley & Gillian Pepper
Evolution and Human Behavior, http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138(17)30007-7/abstract

Abstract: Humans, like other animals, typically discount the value of delayed rewards relative to those available in the present. From an evolutionary perspective, prioritising immediate rewards is a predictable response to high local mortality rates, as is an acceleration of reproductive scheduling. In a sample of 46 countries, we explored the cross-country relationships between average life expectancy, intertemporal choice, and women's age at first birth. We find that, across countries, lower life expectancy is associated with both a smaller percentage of people willing to wait for a larger but delayed reward, as well as a younger age at first birth. These results, which hold when controlling for region and economic pressures (GDP-per capita), dovetail with findings at the individual level to suggest that life expectancy is an important ecological predictor of both intertemporal and reproductive decision-making.

What Explains Personality Covariation? A Test of the Socioecological Complexity Hypothesis

What Explains Personality Covariation? A Test of the Socioecological Complexity Hypothesis. By Aaron Lukaszewski et al.
Social Psychological and Personality Science, http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1948550617697175?journalCode=sppa

Abstract: Correlations among distinct behaviors are foundational to personality science, but the field remains far from a consensus regarding the causes of such covariation. We advance a novel explanation for personality covariation, which views trait covariance as being shaped within a particular socioecology. We hypothesize that the degree of personality covariation observed within a society will be inversely related to the society’s socioecological complexity, that is, its diversity of social and occupational niches. Using personality survey data from participant samples in 55 nations (N = 17,637), we demonstrate that the Big Five dimensions are more strongly intercorrelated in less complex societies, where the complexity is indexed by nation-level measures of economic development, urbanization, and sectoral diversity. This inverse relationship is robust to control variables accounting for a number of methodological and response biases. Our findings support the socioecological complexity hypothesis and more generally bolster functionalist accounts of trait covariation.